Wednesday, 19 February 2014

Voila Veronica: A Floral Laurel

Don't we all get crushes on each other in the sewing and blogland? With so many babe-a-ramas around, it's really hard not to get a big crush on peeps. My current crush is Mokosha who has been around a bit, but I kept forgetting to add her blog to my reader, so thank fuckity for bloglovin' as it has reminded me and now I'm just looking at her photos all the time! So my layout today is in ode to her, lots of photos and then the text down here! I'm too chatty to follow her text layout though!

It's a Colette Laurel dress pattern, vintage fabric - something polyester something cotton, as there's a tiny stretch and it frays like heaven's betsy's - that was op shopped sometime ago, and it's almost unremarkable... what do you think?

But it was a REALLY long time coming... I started it in April last year, and you can see it with my white Laurel on Diana the Dressform... and never really got to stitching the sides, and finishing. So while I'm not posting that often here on the blog at the moment, I'm actually sewing a lot and making sure I FINISH up the projects in my sewing room. I don't often have the unfinished outfits (UFO's) but wrapped up patterns in fabric, with notions tucked in... so I have little bundles of 'To Do Lists' taking up space in shelves, drawers and bags and frankly, it all has to go and get done. So, after my December kickstart on sewing month, I'm not going to photograph EVERY outfit or thing... I'm going to finish off my 100 Things with my happy things, and things I wanna show you (and have time to photograph & blog about) xoxo.

The Laurel passed the Mena Test (sewing the sides - one long stitch on one side was going to be the side zipper - and then trying it on to see if you don't have to waste a notion) as I changed the back zipper on the pattern to the side. Sometimes in floral or patterned fabric a side zipper looks nicer so you're not breaking up the pattern on the back. And because the shape is really a 60s shift dress, you can get away with a bit of room. I perhaps won't be bending over in this version though (!), yep, I like the skirts short!

The sleeves are cute with these cuffs and overall it's a really quick version to sew. Especially leaving the zipper out. It makes it super thrifty as well! I'm sure this was less than $4.